Felted material and process of making same



ANSEL C. DENNING, 0F l'QEhTSON CITY, NEW 'YGRK.

FELTED MATERIAL AND PROCESS OF MAKING SE.

No Drawing.

especially useful for the making of box toes of boots and shoes.

In the manufacture of boots and shoes it is now a common practice to form the'box toes of the shoes from felt impregnated with a thermoplastic binder of such a character that the material maybe made plastic and pliable by heating, as with, steam, whereby it may be shaped to the toe of'the last or the toe mold, the material setting to'shape when it cools. Before the development of'my substitutes for the material heretofore -'used, such box toes were formed from a wool felt impregnated with a thermopl'astic'binder. In my Letters Patent #1303362, granted May 13, 1919, I have disclosed a substitute material for making box toes for shoes which can be used in place of the wool felt employed before the said invention and which has been extensively so used, and a general object of the present invention is to provide an improved substitute material of the eneral character of that disclosed in said tters' Patent, and to provide an improved process for making such materials. More particularly, the invention aims to provide a felted material for the uses for which such materials are particularly in-' tended, and especially for use in the forming of box toes for shoes, which will have the desirable characteristics of a felt for such uses, among which are capacity readily to absorb the thermoplastic binder, strength to resist the strains and rough usage incident to the lasting operation in shoe making, particularly in the lasting of welt shoes, in

which operation it is now the common practice to securethe toe in lasted position by means of a toe wire instead of tacks; and lastly, the capacity to stretch and adapt itself to the curvature of the'toe of the last or of the toe mold.

In carrying out my invention 1 effect a mixture of cotton fibers, wool and tannery hair in such proportions as to produce a Specification of Letters Patent. Application filed March 16, 1920. Serial No. 366,490.

Patented May 3, 1921.

felt having all the various desirable characteristics above set forth, and to obtain' this mixture I utilize what haveheretofore been largely by-products and frequently waste, the cotton fiber being obtained by treatingtextile cotton rags in such manner as to reduce the rags to a pulp,-the wool being likewise obtained from rags, and the hair being added to the mixture after the wool and cotton rags have been reduced to a pulp.

The following treatment of the constituent materials, mlxed in the proportions hereinafter set forth, produces a felted material having all of the desirable characteristics hereinabove mentioned.

Ordinary cotton and woolen textile rags areput into a beater-rsuch, for example, as

the ordinary beater or beating engine used in the manufacture of paper-and after the material has been washed clean in the beater, it is beaten until thoroughly disintegrated and until the fibers are quite thoroughly separated, and'then the tannery hair is added. The beating action is continued after the addition of the tannery hair until the hair is thoroughly intermixed with the cotton and woolen fibers, after which the material is allowed to discharge into a vat, and from this vat the mixture is pumped onto a sheet-forming screen, such for example as the ordinary cylinder wet machine, where the sheet is formed in a manner very similar to-the ordinary operation of paper making. Driers are preferably so arranged as to dry this material continuously.

The following proportions of the materials entering into the composition have been found to impart-to the felted material the desired characteristics, to wit, about 19% of cotton rags, 20% which are largely Woolen, and 40% of tannery hair, the'wool in such a mixture approximating about 12% of the whole mixture.

The advantage of using a small percentage of wool in a composition of this character is that the wool tends to open up the felt slightly because of its being curled and thus tends to increase the absorbent capacity of the resultant felt and at the same time to facilitate its stretching, the tanner hair cooperating with the wool to give t e material the ca acity to stretch and conform to the shape 0 the toe.

of mixed rags,

It is important that the tannery hair be added to the mixture after the textile ra s have been substantially reduced to a pulp, 1n

order that the hair itself may not be broken up and thus not play its proper part in the completed felt, this part, as hereinabove suggested, being important in a material -in tended particularly for use in the making of box toes for shoes.

After the material has been formed into sheets and dried, it is impregnated with the thermoplastic binder. Such a binder may be formed from a mixture of rosin and asphaltum, and the impregnation of the felt may be effected by forcing the sheet through a hot mixture of the rosin and asphaltum.

After the impregnated felt has been cooled so that the binder has set, the box toe-blanks may be died out and skived on the edges and thus made ready for insertion in the toes, Where they are later usually heated by steam and made plastic as hereinabove pointed out.

It will be understood, of course, that the invention is not restricted to theexact proportions of materials above set'forth in the description of an illustrative mixture that has produced satisfactory results, andthat its utility is not necessarily restricted to the provision of material for making box toes of shoes.

What I claim as new is:

1, A felted material of the character described, composed of cotton and Woolen rags and tannery hair, the proportion. of-

cotton and of tannery hair being each greater than the proportion of WOOl in the resultant materia 2. A felted material of the character described, composed of cotton and oolen textile rags and tannery hair, the proportion of wool being less than one-half of that of either of the other component materials.

3. A felted material of the character described, composed of cotton, Wool and tannery hair, the WOOl being much less in pro-- portion than either the cotton or the tannery hair.

4. The process of making a felted material of the character described, Which consists in forming a mixture consisting of about 40% of cotton textile rags and 20% of mixed cotton and woolen textile rags, and after reducing said rags to a pulp in which the. fibers are substantially separated adding to such mixture about 40% thoroughly mixing said tannery hair with said rag pulp, and then forming a sheet from impregnating said sheet with a t ermoplastic binder.

Signed at Johnson. City, N. Y., this 12th day of March, 1920. a

ANSEL 0., DENNING. Witnesses:

A. G. ORIMMINs, M. B. CAMPBELL.

of tannery hair, 

